We broke down the problems we had into specific topics, just to systematize our many hours of low-level grumbling.

(1) LACK OF SIGNAGE

Perhaps the biggest problem we encountered was that even when we knew a specific address, institution, or building had one or more electric-car charging stations, it was never obvious where they would be located.

Consider the six available charging stations at Mayo Newhall Hospital in Santa Clarita, California. It’s a big place, and once you’ve driven onto the property, there are many surface lots, a high-rise parking structure, and numerous buildings.

The Plugshare app identified an intersection at the corner of what appeared to be a hidden surface lot with no apparent entrance. So we spent 10 fruitless minutes trying the several levels of the adjacent multi-deck parking structure.

The entrance to the lot with the charging stations turned out to be down a dead-end road, completely invisible, hidden behind a large ventilation shaft, and camouflaged by landscaping.

There wasn’t a single sign anywhere on the property that we saw to point to the stations. Nor was there advance information as to what kind of charging existed.

The apps themselves generally explain whether there’s 240-volt Level 2, or one or more of the various kinds of DC fast charging, but that’s almost never evident until you get there.

This is clearly a case where something like Matt Teske’s proposed Chargeway system would help, paired with proper onsite directional signs.

(2) COSTS, POLICIES, AVAILABILITY VARY

Suppose you knew a gas station existed, but you didn’t know if it was open 24 hours, or perhaps 6 am to midnight—or just available 9 am to 5 pm on weekdays.

Moreover, until you arrived, you had no idea whether the gas was free, would cost the standard $2.50 a gallon, or perhaps might run you $10 a gallon.

Or whether every single pump was occupied by a car sitting there all day, even long after it had finished filling.

That’s the circumstance today at any given charging site, where even if charging spots don’t have non-plug-in cars parked at them, they may be used as all-day parking spaces even hours after a car has finished charging.

If there’s an open spot, a user has to read the signs about how long the car may stay, and how much it costs per charge, or per hour, or per kilowatt-hour.

This is information available from many (but not all) of the charging locator apps. But …

(3) CHARGING-LOCATION APPS ARE INCONSISTENT

The phone apps (and, as in our Kia Niro Plug-In Hybrid, charging locators built into the car’s navigation system) don’t all show the same info on the same stations.

The variety of phone apps to find charging sites are mostly owned and run by individual charging networks, so their info on sites outside those networks is absent or incomplete.

The Plugshare app, the one we found by far most useful because electric-car drivers can add check-ins, tips, and photos, crashed frequently on our two Android phones.

The good news is that these are all solvable problems—and at far lower cost than establishing a network of fueling sites for any other liquid or gaseous fuel.

How, where, and when the will to do that may appear, however, remains unclear today.

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